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Salad number one:
Lentils, apples, sprouting broccoli, walnuts, raisins with olive oil and vinegar for a dressing.
Saland number two:
Wheat berries, turnips, asparagus, and mozzarella with a lemon/mint dressing.
What wasn't local: olive oil and lemon from California.
Experiment one:
and experiment two:
Inspiration from Jude and Peggy (I think it was last year she tried this? Yep, here).
And just 'cause I love this so right now...
This is the first year I've had a really good amount of blossoms on the sweet cherry. The sour cherry is covered. Keeping my fingers crossed for a good crop.
Planting potato onions and shallots. Saving a few for a fall planting.
Also planted: lettuce, potatoes, carrots, beets, sunflowers.
Harvesting: broccoli, swiss chard and kale raab (the sprout of the kale plant).
Training raspberries.
Hoping that the cool nights and frosty mornings won't damage the apples, pears and cherries that are blooming.
The important thing to remember about a forecast that says partly cloudy is that there is a chance of sun. And a chance that the apple blossoms will almost open.
While I was waiting for it to warm up just a bit I worked on another linen stitch experiment. This is cotton on size 10 needles. Making dish cloths this way will be a nice option for a bus project.
And I made roasted tomato soup (cleaning out the freezer) and home made whole wheat bread. A perfect dinner after an afternoon in the garden.
It snowed this morning...really. For one hour. And then it rained and then the sun came out.
One of the experiments I decided to try this year was to stack two strawberry pots. It was fun to put together. One of the places I've seen this before is in Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey's book Bountiful Container.
And some spring knitting...
Exploring linen stitch. I like it better when I do a row "wrong" and end up with a bit more variety. It makes an interesting texture and makes for a very flat and dense fabric. It's also slow going and takes some attention (which is not necessarily a bad thing). This will be for a headband. I also think it would be nice in cotton for dish clothes.
One interesting comparison I'd make to seed stitch is that seed stitch has more drape. I probably will keep to seed stitch for the blanket I'm knitting.
I've known for awhile that I had a few areas where the stitching was "wrong" on the beginning of this blanket, but I wasn't too worried about it. As I've been knitting I keep considering these areas and liking how it looks. What if there were little bits here and there of stockinette, of ribbing?
Another what if I was considering was to spin some of the yarn for this rather than work with the goal of using up the stash. I've decided that seed stitch isn't the best choice for my thick and thin hand spun. Maybe if I make a more consistent thickness? Maybe...